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Illustrator - Business Card help!

I have made up a design in illustrator that i want to send to print main setting i have put in place CMYK, 300ppi and 3mm bleed right round. Specs are 3.5 x 2

I am ready to show my design to the client and send for print.

First i would like to know is how do i show the client do i just put it down as a pdf and send it, if so how do i explain the A4 looking design that is way bigger then a business card the question i am expecting lol.

And from the print side do i just need to convert the text to outline and save as pdf or is there some other settings i need to set for it to be print ready?

As far as how you show your client-- well, that's really up to you. Some people will crop the final design and save it as a .JPEG, but I would imagine a .PDF is fine. I find that people in general understand images better, so I usually just send two images (one front, one back) to my customers for review.

As far as format for printing, your best bet is to contact your print shop and find out what works best for them. A simple phone call should be all you need to get their preferred file and size specifications.

As far as how you show your client-- well, that's really up to you. Some people will crop the final design and save it as a .JPEG, but I would imagine a .PDF is fine. I find that people in general understand images better, so I usually just send two images (one front, one back) to my customers for review.

As far as format for printing, your best bet is to contact your print shop and find out what works best for them. A simple phone call should be all you need to get their preferred file and size specifications.

I would print out the image at actual size on card stock, cut it to actual size, and show that to the client. Don't show him anything else unless the client wants all the files to handle printing himself.

As written above, absolutely contact the print shop to make sure you create the files with crop marks, etc. exactly as the printer needs them. It's possible you are using an online print service, so that all you need to do is look up their specs and upload the JPG (which would be in RGB, not CMYK).

If you send a file to a client, there's no real way for them to see a 100% scale proof just by a screen representation. I'd in no circumstance release a PDF to the client, on the basis that you are then effectively providing them with your artwork. If they're devious, and through experience, I have come across many of these kinds of people, always send a low quality watermarked version to them. Or, alternatively, alter your pasteboard to A4 and create your business card within. Output a low resolution JPG. Paste this into Word and email the file to them so that they could then print the A4 on a bubblejet (this would have to be in RGB) to get an idea of the size.

As for the printer, always output a CMYK file, as mentioned, with 3mm bleed, and all the fonts outlined if you do not include them in the zip file itself. This will ensure that the printer does not have any missing font issues on their ends.

Also, make sure you only ever create black text with just 100% black, as if the plates during print move, you'll get an eerie blurred effect.